in Polish socially engaged art.
Poland is one of those countries where modern art has more and more to say in cases connected with politics. Artists want to be closer to ordinary people. They want to response to their needs; satisfy the requirements of ideology and existence, instead of aesthetics only. That is why they not only go into the public space, but they try also to talk about important for us subjects.
By important subject I mean still not solved case of Jewish minorities, which touches lots of fields of our life. This subject is concerned with holocaust, concentration camps, anti- Semitism, and appropriation of Jewish properties by socialist country as well as with memory of our common history – of Polish Jews and Poles living together before the Second World War.
My documentary tries to tell about the problems which result from lack of knowledge or understanding of Polish society. Sometimes this unawareness is not only incomprehensible for foreigners what is logical because they are from a different cultural area, but very often this subjects is not clear even for us- Poles. It could seem that case of Jews who were removed to concentration camps, holocaust, immigrations and emigrations is such obvious part of our history, that everybody should know this. But it is only the misguided belief, so it stimulate artists to remember the past, and on the other hand once for good get the better of echo from the past by means of their work.
To make this documentary clear, we should mention some important facts. before the Second World War Jewish minority accounted for 10 % of Polish society. At that time Israel did not exist as an independent country, and most of Jews emigrated to Poland from Germany in the XIX century. It was a result of increasing amount of anti- Semitic movements.
Unfortunately, not every Pole liked to have Jews as neighbours. Religious differences and economy were underlying reasons of aversion to newcomers. Jews could adjust rather easily to new conditions, since for hundreds of years they existed as a nomadic population. It was not a problem to learn new languages. Children had to start education as three years old, therefore they did not have any problems with acquiring new language. Thanks that they were account for a big number of the polish intelligentsia. They were especially doctors, lawyers, companies owners. These things made Poles jealous, so anti- Semitic movements, protests and demonstrations were growing up very quickly. Propaganda made people to believe that the Second World War was Jewish fault.
What is worst, we can observe that some people still believe in those stereotypes.
In his work titled ‘Pole in the closed,’ Artur Żmijewski tries to turn viewers attention to this problem. This video art shows us students from the Institute of Applied Social Sciences
and anthropology department of Collegium Civitas. They are trying to tell in their own way about Karol de Prevot’s painting, which depicts Jews performing ritual murder and is connected with situation which happened in Sandomierz (a town in the South-East of Poland) many years ago. This film shows the insularity of Polish society, their unwise beliefs that the Pope John Paul II or our previous president Aleksander Kwaśniewski were Jews. The most terrifying thing which should really scare us is that they truly believe in what they are saying, and ask ourselves why we can hear an unjustified hate in their voice? The parish priest of the Cathedral , seems to do nothing with the painting. He seems unaware of the fact that this kind of propaganda can have a huge influence on people, especially on those uneducated.
The second film ‘Bad Dreams’ is also Zmijewski's work. It was not a coincident that the artist has chosen Sławomir Sierakowski to take a part in it. Sierakowski is an editor in chief of Krytyka Polityczna (KP)(‘Political Critique’)1 which is Poland's largest left-wing circle of intellectuals and activists. It is important to emphasize that almost nobody from the right- wing circle would take part in this kind of project. In Poland right-wing groups of young people are very conservative, they do not tolerate minorities, people from different cultural space, homosexuals, and feminists.
An action of that film takes place on 10th-Anniversary Stadium in Warsaw, which has a symbolical meaning. ” The stadium was constructed mostly with rubble from buildings destroyed during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944.” The stadium was used also for aims of propaganda: demonstrations, meetings, assemblies of socialist Poland. In last few years this was also a big market, where people especially from Asia, very often illegal immigrants, were selling their products in that forgotten area.
In that part of the film which I am showing, Sierakowski is standing in the middle of the stadium. He is calling Jews. But there is only an empty field, no people, no Jews around. He does not see the difference between Jews and Poles. For him they are the same, they are people. He is asking Poles and in the name of all Polish people about the past and relations with Jews, and in the same time he emphasizes that all of us should think about this subject.
Nowadays Polish art seems to be very connected with politics. Artists rather stand on the left- wing. They lead a dialogue with situation which goes on in the country. Art was ignored by many people, especially by politicians. That is the reason why polish art wants to shock and broaches the taboo subjects/breaks the taboo. Young artist Wilhelm Sasnal in an interview for KP about art says ‘In my opinion, this is a disagreement on this that is happening in this country. Somewhere there we are mental sluggish’; and when a journalist from KP is asking what are the reasons behind connection between art and politics he responses ’I think that people are creating associations, which have some postulates in reaction, on that what is happening. Our day life is determined by politicians.’
All of the artists whose works I am showing in my documentary: Zbigniew Libera, Wilhelm Sasnal, Mirosław Bałka, Joanna Wowrzeczka, Artur Żmijewski are using different ways of expression to emphasize that this topic is important for them. All of their work is amazing and very easy to interpret. It is hard to say whose works have the biggest influence. As long as people do not recognise that it is serious problem in our society and we need to solve problems from the past, as long as they do not realise that Jews did not abduct catholic children for matzos and kill them for religious purposes, as long as they come and take revenge on poor people or judge them because they live in old Jewish houses, the artists will emphasize that this subject is still standing in a queue to be solved. People have to know that some day it is possible that we would change places and be part of ethnic minority in an intolerance country. Poles have to understand this better then people of different nationalities, because there was a time in our history when there was no Poland on the world map. That is why we should respect those things much more, and help. We should remember that everybody is equal, it does not matter where is he or she coming from, in what does he or she believe, what gender he or she is.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
1. Pasz, Franciszek. Żydzi i my w Cieszynie. Cieszyn, 1997.
2. 10th- Anniversary Stadium From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10th-Anniversary_Stadium
3.
4. Bogusław Deptuła, Marcin Krasny, Kamila Wielebska . Niejeden Sasnal.13 Dec. 2007.
5. Katarzyna Bojarska. Obecność zagłady w twórczości polskich artystów.
6. tv_KP: Sasnal o sztuce i lewicy.
7. Whitaker, Ben. Minorities: A Question of Human Rights. 1984.
Chapter 1.: What Rights Should Minorities Have?
